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■ Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster submits an original song representing its country to be performed and broadcast live to all of them via the Eurovision and Euroradio networks, and then casts votes for the other countries’ songs to determine a winner.

I’ve always been a big fan of Eurovision, the 70-year-old song competition that gave us such amazing songs like “Poupée de cire, poupée de son” by France Gall, “Puppet on a String” by Sandie Shaw, “Waterloo” by ABBA, and “L’amour est bleu” by Vicky. Although French singer Vicky did not win that 1967 Eurovision contest, that song did become famous in Europe and Asia… and it also made a surprise reappearance in the opening of the May 12th Semi-Final show for Eurovision 2026 at Vienna, Austria! Vicky, now much older, showed up to help finish that song! It never sounded better.

This year’s Eurovision has a little controversy, because of Israel’s participation. As a protest against the Isreal war in Gaza and Iran, five countries (Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain) boycotted Eurovision. I believe also this year, the UK is allowing voting of songs via the internet. There is a small charge of 35 pence (that’s like 50 cents?) and limiting voting to 10 votes only.

So far, from what I’ve seen of the first Semi-Final, I really like that the first song “Viva, Moldova!” by Satoshi. It’s a lot of dumb, nonsensical lyrics, but god, it sounded fantastic with that frantic, pumping beat. It’s not in English, if you can spot a bit of Spanish you’ll pick up, “mi casa es su casa” (my house is your house). You can watch the clip on YouTube.

I really also like Greece’s entry, it’s kind of a funky weird Greek statue, weird costume, just a weird DJ/techno entry. I don’t think they’ll win, but they’re a contender for my vote. By the way, they did qualify for the grand finale.

Normally I love Sweden, but this year I wasn’t feeling that song. I was surprised to see that some artists have returned, such as Vanilla Ninja, who we haven’t mentioned since 2007!

San Marino had a special surprise appearance by Boy George for Senhit’s song “Superstar”. He certainly is a superstar.

So, one of my criticisms for Eurovision is that I believe all, or most, are lip-synced. I think, because the show is so tightly controlled, that it must be lip-sync. So, the whole dance performance makes it look like more or less like music videos, so that’s cool. Anyway, I apologize if the whole thing is live, it is possible there is a delay in the live broadcast that is throwing things off for me.

Anyway, the final winner will be announced May 16, after they tally up all the votes. I will try and catch the finale to see who won. So far, Moldova has my vote.

Update: The livestream of Eurovision is available now to go live at 21:00 CEST on Saturday 05/16/2026.

Update: Bulgaria is the winner of Eurovision 2026 with DARA’s song “Bangaranga”. It’s a real banga-ranga, watch it on YouTube.